Sunday, May 29, 2011

Governor Goodhair advocates sexual abstinence education because it worked for him. No matter that Texas leads the nation in teen pregnancy. Goodhair graduated from Texas A&M [sic] University with a B.S. in Animal Husbandry. No doubt that Goodhair opted for this field of study because of his (after dark) exploits with heifers behind the barn on his family's rural Texas ranch. Goodhair has named his boots  Liberty & Freedom  so that he can tell Left (Liberty) from Right (Freedom). It is a tribute to the intelligence of Texas voters that they have seen this fool take the oath of office as Governor of Texas four (4) times. Texas writer Katherine Anne Porter (1890 – 1980) wrote Ship of Fools in 1962 and if Porter were alive today, she could write State of Fools. If this is a (fair & balanced) warning of nuisance wildlife, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
"Fantasy Games"
By Ben Sargent

Click on image to enlarge it.

[Ben Sargent drew editorial cartoons regularly for the Austin American-Statesman (1974-2009). Sargent now contributes a cartoon to the Sunday editorial page. His cartoons are also distributed nationally by Universal Press Syndicate. Sargent was born in Amarillo, Texas, into a newspaper family. He learned the printing trade from age twelve and started working for the local daily as a proof runner at fourteen. He attended Amarillo College and received a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues (1980) and Big Brother Blues (1984).]

Perry is the latest Republican Party crush. Rush Limbaugh delivered a 20-minute paean on the radio, begging him to run for president. He’s from the South, and he has great hair! What more could you want?

The G.O.P. is desperately seeking someone who can save the party from the fate of nominating Mitt Romney. But every time a non-Mitt throws his hat in the ring, the hat explodes. Newt Gingrich has been a candidate only about two weeks, and already he has announced that anyone who quotes his comments about Medicare on “Meet the Press” would be lying. And he responded to the question “did you owe a half-million dollars to a jewelry company at one point?” with a series of nonanswers, one of which was “we are very frugal.”

Meanwhile, about-to-announce Rick Santorum told an interviewer that John McCain doesn’t understand about interrogating people under torture.

Perry! Perry! Perry!

O.K., there are a few problems. One is that a Texas Tribune poll this week showed that Perry was only the choice of 4 percent of Texas Republicans for the presidential nomination. (Sarah Palin came in first and Gingrich second, which suggests the Republicans in Texas may not be totally focused.)

On Friday, Perry seemed a little more interested in the whole idea than he had in the past. “I’m going to think about it,” he told reporters after he ceremonially signed a bill making it more difficult for poor Texans who do not have drivers’ licenses to vote.

Anyway, we will refrain from any snide comments about how, in Perry’s case, thinking is a very intense commitment. Really, the guy might be president. Show some respect.

So who is this man called Rick? He is, in his own words, “the kind of guy who goes jogging in the morning packing a Ruger .380 with laser sights and loaded with hollow point bullets, and shoots a coyote that is threatening his daughter’s dog.” That really happened. In fact, it was possibly the high point of Perry’s political career.

You can see the attraction. Try to imagine the Republican convention being asked to choose between Mitt Romney, who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of his car, and the guy who shot a puppy-eating coyote. With a Ruger .380 with laser sights!

Also, Perry wears boots named “Freedom” and “Liberty.”

Clearly, this is a force to be reckoned with. So, today, as a public service, I am going to continue my survey of books by potential Republican presidential nominees by examining the collected works of Rick Perry. Fortunately, there are only two. And, if it’s all right with you, I’m going to skip over On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For [2008].

Let’s go straight to Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington [2010], which does read a whole lot like an I’m-running-for-president tome. Somewhere between No Apology: Believe in America (Mitt) or To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine (Newt).

“Something is terribly wrong,” Perry starts off. And he doesn’t mean coyotes or scuff marks on “Freedom” and “Liberty.” American people are fed up with federal government: “We are tired of being told how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our house, what kind of cars we can drive, what kind of guns we can own.”

I hate it when the salt police come into your house and interrogate your French fries. The federal government actually doesn’t tell us any of these things. Although it is true that federal regulations have driven the price of machine guns way up.

Perry is a true believer. He hates Social Security. (“A crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.”) He wants the Supreme Court to stop its activist ways — as soon as it declares the health care reform law unconstitutional.

He hates the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which permitted Congress to pass an income tax. (“The great milestone on the road to serfdom.”) He also hates the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of the U.S. Senate because it reduces the power of state legislatures.

This is where he lost me forever. People, have you ever seen a state legislature in action? Have you ever seen the Texas Legislature in action? I have, and my first thought was not: “Gee, let’s give these folks a whole lot more clout.”

If Perry were elected president, perhaps he would do for the entire United States what he’s done for Texas, which ranks first in the nation in the percentage of the population without health insurance, and 45th in high school completion. We could return to grass-roots, state-driven environmental regulations, the kind that have made Texas the nation’s leader in clean-water permit violations, hazardous waste spills and toxic emissions from manufacturing facilities.

But the coyotes would really have to watch out. Ω

[Gail Collins joined the New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page. At the beginning of 2007, she took a leave in order to complete America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines. Collins returned to the Times as a columnist in July 2007. Collins has a BA (journalism) from Marquette University and an MA (government) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.]

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About Me

Born on a dark and stormy night in early 1941. I've lived a life of trial and error for more than 3 score and 10 years. It's been like hitting myself in the head with a hammer; it will feel so good when I can stop.